Illegal Move

   

An illegal move is a move which violates the rules of go.

Typical illegal moves are


Andrew Grant: Recently (on 2nd Oct. 2003) Cho Hunhyeon played an illegal move in a major tournament game and had to forfeit the game.

(Sebastian:) Which illegal move? There aren't many chances to do them in Go!

Andrew Grant: Cho played a non-capturing move on a point with no liberties.

[Diagram]

Cho Hunhyeon 9d v. Choi Cheolhan 5d. Kisung tournament.

B1 seems bizarre, but Cho was probably intending to take the ko at a and just played on the wrong point.

It's easy to make this kind of blunder if a ko is involved. Most likely Cho's mind was preoccupied with counting and evaluating ko threats, and he failed to pay due attention to the trivial task of taking the ko.

Something similar happened a few years ago in (I think) the Meijin tournament in Japan, where Cho Chikun took a ko without making a threat. But on that occasion the game was annulled rather than forfeited, since Cho had asked the referee if it was his turn to take the ko and the referee had answered wrongly.



(Sebastian:) Poor guy. I think that Go is too hard-hearted. (Ensuing discussion moved to hard-heartedness)

uxs: Black playing at a instead of at B1 seems bizarre too. White seems to be in such a better position there that black should just give up and tenuki, imho.

f3etoiles As usual, your opinion (even honest) is not a guarantee of good judgment (especially when analysing strong pros' games). Here, the ko is actually playable : it is a YoseKo, of course, but if Black can win it, and he has *many* ko threats, as his whole left group is dead as it stands, this will ressurect the left group. That would put Black very much ahead ... except White will have played 3 moves in a row elsewhere... All this said, do you still believe you are confident of your judgment of this position ?

Dieter: Look at it as a question, Denis. uxs' statement is laden with seems and imho.

Rakshasa: And f3etoilets is critizing uxs' opinion of the situation, the seems and imho. Calling a bizarre does suggest he doesn't hold the move's potensial value in high regard.

Dieter: It is just that I think it's very common and tolerable to express your doubts in a way that can be perceived as criticism if taken literally. "What a strange move", "This looks like a mistake to me", "Imho, this is wrong", "It seems like white is losing" ... all of these comments are under the permanent hence silent agreement on the fact that we amateurs do not understand pro moves and query each other for opinions. No offence but the assessment by a 4d of a pro decision is to be taken with grains of salt too. For all we know, Cho did abandon because he considered the position unplayable even if he won the yoseko.

I mean, I appreciate Denis' opinion, which was prompted by an IMHO genuine question.

Bill: IMHO, in my humble opinion, by contrast with IMO, is reverse humility, expressing a strong opinion. IMHO. ;-) Bizarre is strong language, too.


This is a copy of the living page "Illegal Move" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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